Extreme weather, agricultural carbon emissions, adaptation, and mitigation strategies.
Typhoon Huajiasha made landfall on Hailing Island, Yangjiang; Shangchuan Island recorded gusts above Force 17 – Guangdong’s strongest ever at a national-level meteorological station. Fish rafts shattered, citrus and sugarcane flattened; farmers just over ten days from the Mid-Autumn and National Day holiday face near-total wipeout.
Foodthink’s research shows that rural social organisations need more than emission reduction accounting and risk assessment to build climate resilience. They must tackle livelihood issues such as hollowing out, ageing and water conservancy, and work with agricultural technology departments and grassroots governance.
In Puer, Yunnan, a South American crop shortfall has kept green bean prices rising for a year running, but erratic rainfall and extreme weather still threaten the harvest. Some local farmers are processing their own beans, planting green manure and shade trees to cope with the climate and find steadier prices.
In some villages in Sichuan, farmers and the public-interest organisation Home Action are trialling low-input, low-pesticide methods that retain local heirloom varieties, helping families eat healthily first and keeping seeds for the community to cope with heat and drought.
In Jianyang, Ya’an and other places in Sichuan, farmers including Yang Xiuyou and non-profit organisation Home Action use no-till cover, heirloom varieties and experience in storing grain to cope with harvest risk in persistent drought, while also sustaining village life for the left-behind elderly.
Several ecological farms in Shunyi and Changping, Beijing, and Baoding, Hebei, have reshaped land, switched crops, and reinforced infrastructure after four straight years of downpours — but with surrounding public drainage works still lacking, extra investment is squeezing already razor-thin margins.
In his own words, farm owner Zhen Rui recounts how the flood struck suddenly, with no evacuation notice whatsoever. 450 mu of riverbank land, built up over more than a decade, was wiped to zero overnight — a documented investment of nearly 30 million.
Having endured a once-in-60-years drought, farmers in Liuzhou, Nandan, and Hechi in Guangxi now face sustained torrential rain. Four first-hand accounts describe water sources washed away, livelihoods disrupted, and fears that the abrupt shift from drought to flood is becoming the norm.
Foodthink Says Since this spring, Shaanxi has experienced its most severe drought since 1961. Combined with extreme weather such as high temperatures, strong winds, and sandstorms, these compound disasters have seriously threatened agricultural production and rural livelihoods. In May, with the support of the Oxfam Hong Kong Beijing office, Foodthink…
I. Flowers in Early Bloom On 3 May, in Jinqu Town, Mei County, Shaanxi, Xu Yuanlin spotted the messenger flower in his vineyard first thing in the morning. He was stunned. The so-called messenger flower is the first blossom of the season; like a herald, it warns farmers to begin…
